We invite roleplayers looking for new or different roleplay to try Taco 'n' Banana (TnB). Come see our forums here: www.taconbanana.com. Just download the content mega packs and you are all set to play on our servers. If you want to know more, just keep reading.

What is TnB?

TnB is an open-ended, player based community, and it is one of the longest running GMod roleplay communities to date. Rather than dictate through scripts or rigid adherence to wide character restrictions, we rely on the players to make the roleplay and craft the setting. While there are some restrictions on certain elements of roleplay, these are intended to enhance the experience only. Anyone who shows a genuine effort and real creativity in their roleplay will find TnB to be a fun and rewarding experience.

What does TnB have to offer?

Currently we offer Half-Life 2 themed and Terminator themed roleplay. You will note that we refer to these as "themed." Again, rather than hold people to a linear pathway for character and setting development we allow these canons to be more open to interpretation and give people an opportunity to add their own piece to it. We also have a unique Cyberpunk roleplay in the works and coming along well. You can preview the concepts on the forums and offer your input as well.

Could you further explain "the players make the roleplay"?

At TnB we feel that everyone should have a chance to roleplay their characters as they feel they should rather than strictly how someone else thinks they should. That is not to say we allow for everything, of course, but we believe more roleplay, and more interesting roleplay, can be made through permitting players to really create their own characters rather than give them a preset and tell them to stay with it. As long as it is not blatantly distracting or disruptive to other players or the setting we tend to be all right with it. If you are ever unsure whether or not something is okay, just ask one of our Roleplay Development Admins or Senior Executive Admins.

Are there jobs and money? And what about joining factions?

The only "jobs" on TnB's servers are those made by the players. There are no script defined jobs. Money only exists as a roleplay element on our Half-Life 2 RP and actually has limited impact on your roleplay overall. Again, it relies heavily on you as the player. This allows for many opportunities in your character development, but does require you to go out and make the effort. To join most factions, rather than execute a script command, you must go an apply for it on our forums. The others must be joined through your roleplay. This ensures those joining the factions are dedicated to enhancing the roleplay overall.

So if you think you would like to try a roleplay server where the roleplay is up to you, come visit our forums at www.taconbanana.com. Introduce yourself, grab the content, and join the servers!

This server may have been the biggest waste of my time ever. You constantly make false promises to newcomers, showing them what they can achieve but never allowing them to achieve it. You claim to offer everyone a fair chance, but you either have to be a massive suck-up or donate money just to get noticed. Even then, most of the community won't respect you.

The most you'll ever see is the inside of a bunker or a shitty apartment, while all of the previously established members force you to stay in while they actually take part in all of the roleplay, which isn't open to you, because, well, you're a newcomer and obviously a 12 year old idiot who knows nothing of proper grammar or spelling, let alone functioning RP.

My advice? Go to a server a bit more welcoming to newcomers, with something fun to offer that isn't watching virtual paint dry.

This advertisement is pretty damn dry and uninteresting. And a lot of it is bullshit. Unless you've got your hands situated down the pants of the various admins at TnB, don't bother playing there. Way too much elitism and favouritism to ever get anywhere without sucking a lot of admin dick.

I remember a few years back, saw server, got interested, joined, errors / missing textures everywhere, left, downloaded a fuckload of custom content, joined, lagged to hell, 5 players, saw two cops noclipping and dicking around with a gunship, other 3 citizens were locked in an apartment, left and never came back

Anyway, I've never had any good experiences with TnB in the past. Joined their HL2RP a while back, and it was basically like this:
Walk around, walk around, walk around, try to start a conversation, get beat up because you're talking to another citizen, walk around...
Then get locked inside the 45th apartments, while an event with rebels take place outside. Do you get to partake in the event? Hell no.
Then proceed to walk around some more.
Oh, and don't forget: don't look for action, it will come to you. Except it doesn't come to you.

TnB has done well over the years, sure, but it has lost the potential it once had.

This server may have been the biggest waste of my time ever. You constantly make false promises to newcomers, showing them what they can achieve but never allowing them to achieve it. You claim to offer everyone a fair chance, but you either have to be a massive suck-up or donate money just to get noticed. Even then, most of the community won't respect you.

The most you'll ever see is the inside of a bunker or a shitty apartment, while all of the previously established members force you to stay in while they actually take part in all of the roleplay, which isn't open to you, because, well, you're a newcomer and obviously a 12 year old idiot who knows nothing of proper grammar or spelling, let alone functioning RP.

My advice? Go to a server a bit more welcoming to newcomers, with something fun to offer that isn't watching virtual paint dry.

This. Fancy content and scripts and all that do not a good RP server make. I have tried TnB several times over the past 3 years after numerous friends in that community urged me to and every time I was disappointed at being completely ignored by everyone because I wasn't a donor/server regular. And then I'd try it again a few months later because people would say "Oh it's much better now, come on and play" and experience the same problems over and over again. Not worth the 2gb+ of shit to DL at all.

Hi. I'm an ex-TnBer, and have attained multiple admin positions in their community during the past two years. (HL2RP BA, SRP SA, forum supermod) and have fully experienced their exterior and internal workings. I have extensive roleplay experience prior to TnB, including down-to-earth text-based ones. I genuily highly discourage anyone from going here if they seek a roleplay-intensive experience.

Taco'n'Banana advertises itself as a serious roleplay community, but an inherent flaw that more veteran roleplayers such as myself will recognize, is the fact that TnB excludes far too many concepts of roleplay to be considered part of the genre, but is moreso in the same league as DarkRP (not saying that's a bad thing - I enjoy darkRP for what it is) whilst at the same time looking down upon those forms of roleplay and having an elitistic attittude.

I shall eloberate. First, let us ask ourselves, what exactly is the purpose of roleplay? Roleplay is to write a story, perhaps even a novel in real-time, dynamically, in unison with multiple other players within a specific setting, but no unwarranted restrictions inside of that setting. This is already where TnB goes wrong. It has actually created a spiderweb of systems and bureaucracy so complex --even worse than my real life job-- that it chokes the life from any unique roleplays and assumes that any and all players are too stupid to come up with their own story arcs. It forces everyone to hold hands with administrators and harshly cracks down upon anything not according to their "norm".

And at the same time, their setting itself is horrendous. This post advertises Half-life 2 roleplay, yet their current setting is admitted to be Japan. I'm sorry, but how can you claim to be roleplaying in a specific setting when at the same time removing something crucial to said setting? In this case being Valve's choice of Eastern Europe as the enviroment for their game. This is only the beginning, TnB has completely twisted and blatantly wrong perspectives of so many elements in the game that it is impossible for me to determine where to begin. Their overly complex and disciplinary "CCA", when the metropolice force is clearly seen to be not much more than glorified bullies in the game? Their ridicilously overpowered rebel groups, supported OOC by admins and capable of destroying entire cities, with no trace of their poetic purpose in the game? There is literally close to no values of our precious HL2 game to be found in TnB's supposed half-life 2 roleplay.

The politics in TnB are some of the worst I've encountered in my experience with roleplay. And that is saying a lot. It has actually come to the point at TnB that roleplay barely even matters; it is your OOC actions solely that determine whether you get, for example, a superior position within the CCA or an admin position. Having the right friends gets you anything you would need, something I experienced first hand and had to apply for myself during my stay at TnB, which is the only way I managed to attain my admin positions. Not through standing out with exceptional roleplay, an undying dedication and creativeness/initiative to create roleplay for others, but through systematically befriending the right people through Ventrilo or SF.

Lastly, Taco'n'Banana vastly lacks in their technical department. Their security is abyssal, and their database can be gotten into as easily as copypasting an SQL command into their admin login panel. This has been demonstrated firsthand countless times throughout the past years, with TnB facing very severe instability, attacks and whatnot, yet at no point during this did the community leader even invest a single penny into their server, security or gamemode scripts. Yet I know that they receive an insane amount of donations, there were multiple donators who had chipped in in the thousands of dollars, which is not an exaggeration but a solid fact. Where does all this money go to, then? Well, I won't answer that question because it will give my post the vibe of a personal attack, but let's just say that some rumours have very solid bases.

I'll leave it at this - I doubt many people will read this post as is. I hope I spared some actual roleplayers the trouble of having to go through the TnB cycle of initial amazement at the novelty, then experience all the things listed above, become embittered, etc.

It's been dead since 2008 and has, over time, just been getting shittier and shitter over the months.
2009, Late december, it took me Approximately 3 months to get into the Canals, where you MUST hang out or you'll get nowhere in the resistance.

2010, July. I created a new character.
It took me an hour to get into the canals, with an SMG and a Shotgun with a retardedly unbelievable character. I was offered a vest the next day. (Vests are essentially 60 armor points and you're in the actual resistance and to be greatly trusted)

What is there to say about TnB other than what has already been summed up here? One of the worst run communities out there, one of the worst servers out there, with the worst leader. Donations to the community don't actually go to the community (let's not get into where they do go) and the only people who can achieve anything are the ones willing to spend copious amounts of money on "donations" for horribly copy-pasted together custom models and unrealistic guns, who just so happen to also be the worst role-players out there.

TnB takes the canon of Half-Life 2 and tears it to pieces. The only thing in this server that remotely reflects Half-Life 2 is the presence of Combine, and even they're a petty excuse. Popularity and cash-flow trumps dedication and hard work.

I spent close to two years here before finally quitting. Don't waste two years of your life constantly being spit on, pissed on, and abused. Unless, of course, you're into that sort of thing.

TnB is still easily the best RP community, but yes, they're fucking boring. Still better then that PERP or DarkRP shit, I don't get what people see in that.

Don't think of PERP or DarkRP as roleplay, they're quite fun, but they really are RPGs rather than serious RPs.
And unfortunately, being the smartest kid with downs, is not a positive thing. Because, in the end, you still have downs.